'Food, Inc.' slices, dices what America puts into its mouth
Most people don't pay much attention to where the stuff we eat comes from, much less spend time pondering the politics of food production.
In recent years, though, food writers and activists increasingly have questioned the consequences of how the typical American meal is produced. And now average Americans might begin to get the message in a bigger way.
A new documentary film is poised to take the debate over corporate farming, health and environmental consciousness to a wide audience, possibly doing for eating what former Vice President Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" did for global warming.
The film, "Food, Inc.," offers an alarming look at what America puts in its collective mouth.
Practically encyclopedic in its scope, the documentary -- produced by many of the same people involved in Gore's Oscar-winning hit -- covers a score of hot-button topics: chicken "factories," E. coli scares, genetic modification of soybean and corn.
As it has opened elsewhere, the movie has been met with rave reviews.
"Does a superb job of making its case that our current food ways are drastically out of whack," writes Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post. "Everyone should see 'Food, Inc.' -- maybe after dinner -- but they should see it."
Rolling Stones' Peter Travers wrote: "An essential, indelible documentary that is scarier than anything in the last five 'Saw' horror shows."
From Amy Biancolli in the San Francisco Chronicle: "I was warned not to eat before seeing this mind-boggling, heart-rending, stomach-churning expose. Unfortunately, no one told me I might never want to ingest anything ever again."
Foodies are excited.
"This is one of those you've-really-gotta-see-it movies," says Marion Nestle, with the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University and author of the book "What to Eat."
The food industry is punching back. St. Louis-based Monsanto Corp., the chemical company and seed producer, has set up a Web site ( www.monsanto.com/foodinc ) specifically to challenge the movie's assertions about its policies.
"There are a number of inaccuracies and misleading statements in the movie," says Monsanto spokesman John Combest, "and the Web site gives us the space needed to document those examples in detail."
Monsanto suggests that the movie "demonizes American farmers" and presents "an unrealistic view of how to feed a growing nation."
The film's director, Robert Kenner, has been surprised by the heat his little film is generating.
"I wish I could say I was smart enough to see in advance that my film would dovetail with what lots of people are thinking about," Kenner said in a recent phone conversation.
"But the fact is I didn't realize what a growing movement this is. I'm finding it isn't a Republican or Democratic thing ... it's just people who want to feed their kids good food."
In just the past two years, public interest in where our food comes from has grown tremendously, according to Lisa Bennett with the Center for Eco-Literacy in Berkeley, Calif.:
"These are issues that have become personal. I believe we've reached the tipping point where people want to understand the connections between food, their health, their lives and the environment. This movie has come along at just the right moment."
"It's in the zeitgeist," agrees NYU's Nestle.
"At this stage there's almost a generational split," Nestle says. "It's young people who are jumping on this. You can view food as an entry point into the most important issues of society. Food and agriculture are connected to climate change, to employment, to the economy, to people's health -- even to immigration. The corporate control of food, an underfunded FDA and the ineffectiveness of government food inspectors ... they're all bundled together."
Nestle notes that "Food, Inc." has plenty of precedents. She points to two best-selling books -- "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser and "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. Both authors are among those interviewed in the documentary.
Other recent food documentaries have plowed the ground as well: "Fresh," "King Corn," "Super Size Me," "The Future of Food," "Our Daily Bread."
"Somehow 'Food, Inc.' was able to take the best of all that and put it together in an entertaining way with narrators who don't bore you," Nestle says. "Robert Kenner is a really professional filmmaker with a lot of experience. As a result, 'Food, Inc.' is a lot easier to watch than others where the message is more didactic and less entertaining."
Not every nutritionist is sold on "Food, Inc." Debra Sullivan, chairwoman of the University of Kansas Department of Dietetics and Nutrition, says she would take the movie's assertions with a grain of salt.
"From what I've read of the movie, I think they're pushing the extreme side of the argument," she says. "Still, it's not a bad thing to ask where your food comes from."
That, says director Kenner, would be the most important outcome of "Food, Inc."
"Here's what's shocking -- when you've got hearings on the labeling of genetically altered food and a congressman says we shouldn't give the public too much information.
"In many states," Kenner says, "you run the risk of being sued if you publicly criticize food producers."
Kenner doesn't think corporate food is going away and understands its attractions.
"When I was a kid, we spent 18 percent of our paychecks on food; now it's around 9 percent. But back then we paid 5 percent of our paychecks for health care and now it's about 18 percent. I think there's a connection."
If "Food, Inc." is scary, it also offers hope, Kenner says.
"We can change things. We get to vote three times a day with our forks. You can go to a farmers market, eat local food. Making this movie, I visited fields where people wearing what looked like spacesuits were tending crops. And I'm thinking, 'I don't know if I want to eat that.'"
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